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Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Mariners: Caithness and the Flying Dragon 3

W and J Pile Shipbuilders of Monkwearmouth:
The Flying Dragon was built at this yard

The reports of Flying
Dragon’s disastrous fire at the end of July 1854 were still fresh in public memory when she was
again in the news.

Incredibly, within a matter of months the vessel was involved
in a second fire. The headline, ‘Loss of the Flying Dragon’, would have given
readers a sense of déjà vu as they perused their papers over breakfast.

An account in the
Graham’s Town Journal was repeated in the Hobart Town Daily Courier on 16 July
1855 after the usual colonial time lag:

Loss of the Flying
Dragon: This vessel, which put into Simon’s Bay some months ago [July 1854],
having a fire smouldering on board, was entirely
consumed by the same destructive element on Tuesday last, when a youth, the
son of the master, Captain Caithness, unfortunately lost his life. She had been
surveyed and was expected to put to sea on Tuesday next. The unfortunate youth
who perished on the occasion had previously encountered another narrow escape.
He was on board the Sea Gull when she ran ashore in Table
Bay, and by a miracle escaped being knocked overboard when another
vessel came in collision with her on that occasion.

The Liverpool Daily
Post of 12 June 1855 offers a precise date: ‘Cape of Good Hope, April 19, The
Flying Dragon, Caithness, in ballast*, was
burnt to the water’s edge in Simon’s Bay yesterday. Crew, except captain’s son,
saved.’

It seems the second
fire took place on the night of 18 April 1855. The use of the same phrase as in reports of the first fire – ‘burnt to the water’s edge’ - adds to a measure of confusion arising from the vessel’s two similar but separate tragedies.
Initially it was stated that the Flying Dragon had been scuttled after the
damage sustained in the events of July 1854. How then could she have been about to put to sea again in April 1855?

Subsequent to the
first fire, an enterprising Cape businessman
by the name of Suffert had purchased the Flying Dragon’s hull and instituted
extensive repairs on the vessel. The considerable sum outlaid for this work would be covered as Suffert confidently
expected to make handsome profits employing the Flying Dragon in taking
settlers to Australia, with James Caithness as Master.

The second
fire put an end to the plan and cost the life of Caithness’s
son. Although the latter is not named in contemporary accounts, this was in all likelihood Alfred Douglas Caithness, at twelve old enough to be learning the ropes crewing aboard his father’s ship. The
boy had been involved in the Sea Gull wreck the previous July but had emerged unscathed.
Now James endured the loss of a child in awful circumstances as well as the bitter disappointment
of losing another ship. It’s not impossible that this double blow hastened
James’s own early death, at the age of forty-five, five years later.**

Suffert
apparently continued his interests in ocean transport: in 1858 he sent the
Colonial Office a tender for conveying emigrants to Melbourne.***

The Flying Dragon press
reports dispel any doubts that it was James Caithness who was captain of the Sea Gull
in July 1854 and there is a hint that James’s acquaintance with Suffert may well have been
linked to the Sea Gull’s carrying passengers to Australia, though the gale
prevented that particular voyage.

Reference to the death of Captain Caithness’s son in the
second Flying Dragon fire, the presence
of the same boy in the Sea Gull incident, together with the absence of a burial
record for Alfred Caithness are all strong pieces of evidence underpinning this
chapter of the Caithness story.

Scrimshaw Flying Dragon

* i.e. with no cargo loaded

** it is a guess that the boy was Alfred, but it's significant that no records of Alfred’s burial have
been found; James jnr (christened James Edward) was the eldest son, then aged 16, but he did not die young.*** Messrs H and E Suffert of Cape Town; the Suffert brothers were in partnership